


A Promotion of Sorts

by Lizardman Xander (Lizardman_Xander)



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware, Half-Life
Genre: Canon characters will be mentioned at least, M/M, May add canon characters later lol, mermaid au, so far only Gordon has been briefly mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25111030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardman_Xander/pseuds/Lizardman%20Xander
Summary: Dr. William J. Xander, (former) Black Mesa scientist, has been left on a boat in the middle of the ocean as a "promotion". But really, they left him to die. Can't have shit at Black Mesa.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	A Promotion of Sorts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Ocean Isn’t So Scary](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24329575) by [CrackheadMossMan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackheadMossMan/pseuds/CrackheadMossMan). 



> I was inspired by CrackHeadMossMan's amazing HLVRAI Mermaid fic and universe, and so I decided to do something with my Half-Life and HLVRAI original characters.

Dr. William James Xander had been at Black Mesa for only a fairly short period of time, only about a year, yet in that year he had managed to dig himself into a deep hole and Black Mesa wasn’t too happy about that. So here he was, sitting in a brightly lit office in an uncomfortable chair in front of his superior, clutching a cup of water he’d been nursing for the past several minutes. He couldn’t meet the other man’s eyes with his own bright blue ones.

“Would you like to tell me what the hell you were thinking, Dr. Xander? You know you can’t run unauthorized experiments on yourself. You injected yourself with company property.… I had a talk with the administrator and with a few other of the higher ups, and we all agreed that we can’t just fire you. So, we’re giving you a special assignment, but only after we tie up some loose ends. Luckily for you, you won’t be conscious for any of it since your idea was brilliant in the first place for our purposes. Modifying humans is something that our company finds quite intriguing…. among other things. You’ll find that out soon enough, Dr. Xander.” William felt himself become rather hazy, his head felt like it was full of cotton. He dropped his cup, water spilling on the carpet.

“Consider this a promotion of sorts, William. Though, technically you don’t exist anymore, and you’re not really an employee. We can’t let you go, you know too much and you’re much too valuable an asset,” his superior continued, smiling an empty smile that betrayed the excited, devious look in his dark eyes. William meanwhile could see darkness creeping into his vision as he felt his blood pressure drop suddenly.

“You….You drugged m-drnk,”he slurred as he felt his body become heavy and useless to him as he slumped over and fell to the floor. The last thing he knew were several pairs of black dress shoes in his vision and the sound of his own labored breathing before darkness completely overtook his vision. He couldn’t struggle or do anything for who knows how long.

...

When Dr. Xander woke up, he was so freaking sore all over, especially his back in a spot he just couldn’t reach that was bandaged over. He could feel himself rocking, the sensation made him feel a little sick, dizzy, disoriented. He groaned and covered his face, rubbing it with his hands. He heard water outside which was...interesting. The scientist stood up and stiffly looked around, unable to see all that well until he slipped on his glasses which he found on the nightstand.

All his personal stuff from his dorm was just sorta put in one corner of the room in a couple boxes since it wasn’t much. Though thankfully they had enough sense to put his guitar in its case. The room itself wasn’t much bigger than his staff dorm room. There was a large window though with curtains over it, a dresser, a decent sized bed, a nightstand, and some very generic paintings one would find in a doctor’s office or something. He went to one of the doors and was greeted with the controls for the ship he was on...Holy shit he was on a boat in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in the ocean. 

William decided then that it would be best to freak out later and keep himself busy by seeing if he could make sense of any of this. The fuel unfortunately was at Empty, so he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Then again, he didn’t know how to sail this kind of boat. He wanted to start crying as he slid his fingers under his glasses, whining pitifully.

“They left me out here to die in the middle of the fucking ocean…” Hot tears slid down his cheeks, and he reached up under his glasses to wipe them with the sleeve of his jacket. He hiccupped softly and just sat down to have a good cry for a while. When he felt like he was just completely numb, he stood up and sniffled, deciding to explore the rest of the ship. There was a door that led to the deck, but there was also a hatch under his feet that led into the boat he was stuck on. He decided to open that up and explore below, still sniffling every so often. He found it to be rather dark, but he could kind of make out the shapes of boxes. He went back up and looked for something to give him light. He found a battery operated lantern and turned that on before going back below deck. 

“At least they were nice enough to leave me supplies so I don’t fucking starve to death or die of dehydration,”he grumbled. He wasn’t sure how he would keep himself clean, but he would worry about that later. There was probably a bathroom attached to his room. That was his next mission, look for a bathroom. He went back up the steps, shut the hatch, and went to his room. Sure enough, the other door led to the bathroom which had a shower, a toilet, and a sink. Well...he could at least wash his clothes in the shower and hang them up to dry. It was going to suck though. Hell, this whole thing sucked. He wasn’t sure if they would even come back when his supplies would run low to replenish them. He figured he had at least two weeks worth if he was careful, one if he was reckless with them.

He started to turn to walk out when he caught his reflection in the mirror. The man flinched a bit at the sight before him. Fuck, what had they done? He raised a hand up to his face with a soft whine, just staring at his eyes. The sclera were fully a light blue-silver color instead of the usual white. He could vaguely tell where his irises started because of a cobalt circle around them and the fact that they pretty much glowed like a fucking neon sign around his pupils. The pupils were still round thankfully so they weren’t too different in that respect. 

“What the fuck did they do to me while I was unconscious?”he mumbled, still just staring, touching around his eyes. As he stared, he didn’t realize that he hadn’t blinked. He didn’t need to blink anymore considering he had eye caps over his eyes to protect them from damage. They were clear though so he didn’t notice. William just sighed and backed away from the mirror, needing some fresh air out on the deck.

“I am going to go absolutely insane,”he grumbled, and as if on cue, he saw something out on the side of the boat, just sorta swimming around it. Dr. Xander went to the edge to look at this thing. Oh hell, it looked like a person...sorta. Like a man around his age with short black hair, fairly pale skin, and...and it was a fucking mermaid. The bottom half though looked like some sort of large squid. Honestly, he was huge.

“Excuse me!?”Dr. Xander called down to the mermaid, he couldn’t believe it honestly. Then the mermaid looked up and stared at Dr. Xander with maroon eyes that seemed to glow softly. Well...at least he had a fairly kind looking face that still looked fairly kind even as he smiled softly and showed that he had extremely sharp teeth behind his lips.

“Hello,”the mermaid said in what sounded like a kind tone, he had a nice, soothing, deep voice as he spoke, “I’m curious as to what you are doing around here, humans don’t usually go this far out, then again you don’t look fully human yourself. Your boat has been here for roughly three days. We didn’t think there would be anyone alive on board.” The mermaid had used his arms, covered in suckers on the bottom to climb up the side so he could rest his elbows on the side and stare at William.

“W-We? And what do you mean??” William stuttered out, feeling a cold chill come over him as he listened to the mermaid speak.

“We meaning my school. Where are my manners though? You may call me Montana. I am a siren, and honestly you are quite fascinating. I’ve never seen a human with eyes such as yours,”Montana purred, smiling a little wider. “I don’t think you are quite a threat, which is good. Is it only you? Why are you out here?”

“Y-Yeah, it’s only me...And I think I was left out here to die,”Dr. Xander said, swallowing hard. “M-My name’s William by the way.” Montana frowned when William had mentioned that he was probably left out there to die.

“Oh...that’s too bad,”Montana sighed softly. “I don’t think my school would wanna help a human out just yet, but I could at least keep you company for your final days I suppose. I could perhaps allow you to meet them, but I don’t know about Johnson. He’s harder on our school than I am, and he can be kinda mean.”

Dr. Xander just nodded his head slowly, well, it was better than being alone honestly. He ran his fingers through his wild, black hair and sighed softly. Montana gave him a sympathetic look before pulling himself up and onto the boat’s deck, the rest of him trailed off the boat and into the water for who knows how long or far.

“So how many members are there in your school?”Dr. Xander asked, sitting down to make it easier to talk to his new companion.

“There’s me, Johnson, Bailey, Riley, and Petrov. I’m sure you’ll meet them soon enough. You’ll probably meet Johnson though sooner rather than later. He can be quite protective over our little group. I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything though...unless you are a threat.” Montana’s voice became low and frightening, absolutely serious. This made William shudder and swallow hard. 

“I-I don’t plan on being a threat. In fact how would I be one if I was pretty much abandoned out here? This isn’t the first time Black Mesa left someone to die. Just last week there was an incident. Saved me from having to spend time down in a claustrophobic base hundreds of feet under the surface of the water all by myself though...Poor bastard. He’s probably dead by now.” Montana looked troubled at that, like he was thinking about something for several minutes before shaking his head and going back under the water without a word, leaving Dr. Xander all alone with nothing but the thoughts and the sounds of waves crashing against the side of his boat.

**Author's Note:**

> Montana is a Humbolt Squid, and is one of the Leviathans of his school. Johnson is the second Leviathan. As we meet the characters I will list their species out for you. Dr. Xander's is a surprise unless I spoiled it for you on Discord in one of the groups I'm in or my Tumblr blog for Dr. Xander.


End file.
